


First Meeting

by 9thdoor



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Day 1, First Meet, Fluff, M/M, canonverse, eremin week 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-20
Updated: 2014-05-20
Packaged: 2018-01-25 19:42:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1660160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/9thdoor/pseuds/9thdoor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Their first meeting wasn’t the most important one, he didn’t think, and if you asked Eren, it wasn’t even officially their first one. “That was just the first time I talked to you,” he’d insist. “I’d seen you a lot even before that.”</p>
<p>In which Armin doubts that anyone was so eager to be friends as Eren was.</p>
<p>[Eremin week 2, day 1, first meet]</p>
            </blockquote>





	First Meeting

Their first meeting wasn’t the most important one, he thinks, and if you asked Eren, it wasn’t even officially their first one. “That was just the first time I talked to you,” he’d insist. “I’d seen you a lot even before that.”

It was true, Eren had seen him before, even if Armin himself hadn’t noticed. This was, quite honestly, because of the fact that most of the time when he was at the Jaeger residence, he wasn’t awake.

As a child and even into their later days as trainees, Armin was prone to illness. The additional injuries from those who called him a heretic before he knew Eren did nothing to decrease his number of visits to the local doctor. So he ended up, many times, in the spare room at Eren’s house, with either a fever, sore limbs, or something much more serious.

Regardless of his ailment, most of the time Armin was told to sleep. At first he believed it to be a significant form of treatment, but once he learned more—and woke to a prick in his arm—he knew that it was simply to keep him calm and hopefully quiet when Dr. Jaeger delivered the actual medicine. Nearly all his time there was spent with his eyes closed or averted from the people speaking to him; focusing on the floor and moving out without having to shamefully explain the reason for his newest bruises. 

It was all beside the point, really, and rather unimportant. Because to him, the day he met Eren was rainy.

This time, he wasn’t there simply due to a scratch or nasty cut from being pushed around, he’d come down with a fever the day before, and if going off of past incidents was any indication, it could progress into something much worse if not caught early. With great reluctance, Armin had allowed his mother to bring him here, leading him through the opening hall and getting him settled in the bed that he’d been to for a number of similar incidents.

 

Once he’d been laid to bed there, he almost immediately shut his eyes. It was caused by a mix of habitual tendency to just fake sleep to get the medicine more quickly, and an actual fatigue that was worsened by his temperature. 

He didn’t intend to fall asleep this time, but the patter of the rain outside ended up lulling him into slumber, and he woke with a start to the feeling of a face awfully near his own. Armin’s eyes were wide, as were the more green ones above him, which blinked in surprise at the fact that he’d woken up.

“Oh.” The boy above him said simply, straightening up. “You’re awake.”

Armin merely nodded quickly, moving to scoot and lean against a pillow rather than being flat on his back, adjusting so that he had something soft behind him before resting against the headboard. For a few moments the blond just stared at him, not really knowing what to say, and only hoping that the boy in front of him wasn’t one of the people who laughed at his wishes to go outside.

“My dad gave you some medicine,” he said, and looked almost as if he was trying to seem bored with the conversation right then, though it was obvious by his still bright eyes that he was more intrigued. The brunet leaned on the side of the bed, plopping down to sit on a small wooden stool beside the sheets. “And your mom left, I think she’s gonna come pick you up tomorrow.”

As this boy, who he didn’t know and yet who already seemed so invested in his condition, continued to speak, Armin hugged one of his arms across his chest, nearly crossing them as his elbows rested on the blankets. Sitting like this in an almost defensive position was natural now, especially if talking to someone his own age. It was then that Armin realized how quiet he’d been in comparison to the boy who was apparently Dr. Jaeger’s son.

“Can you talk?” the other asked, looking at him a bit skeptically.

That immediately spurred the blond to speak, with a quick, “O-of course I can.” 

“Good.” There was a smile on the other’s face now, and he said, “I’m Eren, you should be my friend.”

“I’m Armin,” he said, trying to keep up with this boy’s, Eren’s, conversation, in his still slightly sleepy state, and...be friends? “What—what do you mean?”

The remark made Eren roll his eyes. “You’re here often enough, but you’re always sick, now that we’re friends and I know your name, I can come see you when you’re feeling good too!” It seemed that Eren’s mere suggestion that they should be friends had been a confirmation, no matter what Armin said, and he found himself worrying almost immediately.

“What’re these bruises on your arm?” 

Eren automatically reached out and poked one of them, which made Armin wince with a soft, “Ow.” 

“Sorry,” the brunet quickly apologized, drawing his hand back and sitting up more attentively on the stool. “So? Why’ve you got so many? And there’s a cut up by your forehead.”

At mention of the scratch he’d gotten a few days previous, Armin reached up to feel it, much more gently than Eren had nudged at his bruise. It hadn’t bled, really, in the first place, but now had a scab-like texture. It would be gone soon, he was sure. “Um, I fell over a few times,” the blond said, knowing even at his age that it was a pretty poor excuse.

“My dad says that the other kids kick you,” Eren said, not hesitating to nearly call Armin out on his lie. The blond immediately stiffened up a little, but nodded, seeing no point in lying to Eren right now. “Why?” 

Armin shrugged and tried to find a way to explain it quickly. “I...well, they don’t want to listen to what I have to say. And since they can’t really find a way to tell me I’m wrong, they make me quiet the only way they’re really able to.”

“Well—why don’t you hit them back?” Armin blinked at Eren, who saw such a simple answer to his problem one that he’d never actually attempt.

“I tell them that being violent is showing that they can’t argue against me, so if I did it, it would end up not proving my point,” he explained. The brunet’s brow was slightly furrowed, and Armin could tell that he was one of the people that, if he didn’t know better, wouldn’t hesitate to jump into a fight.

“That...makes sense, I guess.” He could tell that Eren wasn’t really behind it, but still, Armin was glad that he wasn’t just making fun of him for taking a beating and not doing anything about it. “Why’d they get so mad at you in the first place? Did you steal something?”

“No,” Armin almost immediately said, tone slightly indignant. “I just...I talked about outside the walls, and wanting to go out, and they called me a heretic.” 

“You want to go outside?” Eren asked, seeming surprised, but then again most people were, when he told them. It would only be a few moments, he thought, before Eren, like all the others, started telling him that he’d just be food for the titans, and would be wasting the life his parents gave him. 

Instead, he was the one silenced in disbelief when Eren said, looking excited, “I do too! I’m going to join the Survey Corps when I get bigger!” Just as he’d looked curious when initially staring at Armin, the boy’s eyes were bright, and the grin on his face grew. 

“Armin, one day, we’ll go together, alright?” He sounded so hopeful, and even though Armin knew that their chances of being completely safe outside the walls were slim, he didn’t hesitate to nod, a smile on his face as well.

“Yeah, one day we’ll definitely go.” For a moment, they simply sat there, smiling at each other, until Armin added, “ You know, my grandpa has a book about the outside, but he won’t let me read it yet. When we’re bigger, we can read it together!”

That made Eren frown a little, and he mumbled, sounding a little ashamed, “I can’t read yet.”

“Well,” Armin said, quiet for a few moments as he tried to think of a quick solution, “I...I’ll read it to you, and then you can learn to read and we can look at it together over and over. My grandpa says it has really pretty pictures!”

The other’s demeanor brightened at that, quickly recovering from his brief disappointment only to smile again. “Okay! And Armin, we’re best friends, alright? So you can’t go on the adventure with anyone but me.”

Right then, the door to the room opened, and Dr. Jaeger stood in the doorway, clearing his throat. Eren immediately straightened up on the stool, and Armin’s smile faded only a little, because he knew that seeing Eren’s dad probably meant more medicine. He was too giddy to care at the moment, really.

“Eren,” Grisha said, giving his son a slightly stern look, “I don’t want you getting sick, and Armin needs his rest, you two can talk another time.”

Now, Eren was visibly frowning, but apparently knew better than to argue, and sighed, sliding off the stool and giving an, “Alright,” as he shuffled towards the doorway. Armin was about to panic, afraid that he wouldn’t be able to answer Eren’s question, when his new friend turned around again. 

“Best friends?” he asked, looking a little uncertain, but Armin nodded.

“Yes, best friends.” They both smiled, and even as the doctor began to explain that he needed him to take some medicine, and Eren left the room altogether, Armin was still smiling, thinking about getting the book as soon as he could.

**Author's Note:**

> My first contribution to eremin week (which is totally not one day late), for the prompt, first meet. I love Eren and Armin a lot, and fluff like this is really fun to write, but as always, a little afraid I might've gone out of character at a few points.


End file.
